


A Funny Thing Happened On The Way Downtown

by The_Warden



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: A Wild Kuroko Appears!, Fluff, Gen, Humor, M/M, Markiplier references, Midorima's POV, Tiny Box Tim plushie, it's a bunch of silliness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-12
Updated: 2015-12-12
Packaged: 2018-05-06 06:54:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5407220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Warden/pseuds/The_Warden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Midorima has been studying for far too long for midterms and Kise insists on dragging him to Downtown Tokyo. Their adventures do not go entirely as planned when a strange blue-haired boy suddenly appears!</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Funny Thing Happened On The Way Downtown

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lordzuuko](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lordzuuko/gifts).



> It's just a bunch of silliness but I had fun writing this. I've never written a Kuroko no Basuke fic before so I have no idea if I wrote anyone in character or not. haha.
> 
> This story is a gift for lordzuuko who did a lovely Kikuro commission for me earlier this year. I'm FINALLY getting to publishing this fic!

The pencil in Midorima’s hand starts to shake when he presses the graphite tip to the paper in his notebook. The ache in his fingers are reaching a tipping point and is becoming too painful for him to continue working on the review problems for his Calculus midterm.

He curses under his breath. He is just starting to get the hang of these practice problems too, he thinks bitterly. He looks at the review problem again to see what he needs to do for the next step.

Even though Midorima has been studying for a while, he doesn’t want to stop. If he’s being entirely honest with himself, he’s not sure how long he has been studying. His shades have been drawn since he sat down and it’s been raining steadily since he began. He’s vaguely aware that he has had several cups of coffee throughout the night. He heard his phone go off several times as well, so he knows it’s been a few hours but Midorima couldn’t be bothered to check who called. He would call them back after he finished studying, like he always does.

Midorima applies more pressure to the pencil to keep his hand from shaking as he writes down more of the problem. The pencil tip breaks. Midorima lets out a groan of frustration. He sets aside the Calculus he had been working on and grabs his Human Anatomy and Physiology book. He can at least review the readings and diagrams for A&P while he lets his hand rest, he reasons.

Just as Midorima gets himself settled for another round of studying, he hears a keycard slide into the lock and the door to the dorm opens. Kise, his roommate, is back.

Odd.

Normally, Kise breezes through the room, sighs loudly as he drops his shoulder bag onto his bed, and lets out a prolonged, “You wouldn’t believe the day I had, Midorimacchi!”

However, there is a distinct silence coming from Kise this time. In fact, Midorima can feel Kise’s gaze burning a hole into the back of his head. Midorima sighs in irritation and rubs the base of his neck in order to quash the feeling of Kise’s eyes boring a hole into the bottom of his skull.

It doesn’t work.

“What is it, Kise?”

“You need to get out of the dorm, Midorimacchi,” Kise says without preamble. Midorima can _hear_ Kise’s nose wrinkle with disgust as he walks away from the dorm’s door, “and take a shower.” He adds.

Midorima’s eyebrows raise in surprise at the last part. _Does_ he smell? He instinctively turns his head and takes a quick whiff of his underarm. The smell of soaked in sweat that hits his nostrils is pungent. Holy Hell. It had been humid in the room earlier before it started to rain, but this smell was like Midorima had worked out in dirty gym clothes and afterwards, left them in a duffel bag for a week.

“Have you been studying all this time?” Kise asks with genuine concern in his tone. Kise flips his hair to get the bangs out of his eyes. He looks over at Midorima as he sets his shoulder bag softly onto his bed. “It looks like you haven’t moved since I left this weekend for my photoshoot.”

Midorima starts at this. Weekend? Photoshoot? He peers at Kise out of the corner of his eye. Kise is wearing form-fitting designer skinny jeans that emphasize how tall he is. He has a white t-shirt underneath a red plaid button-up with a black rope necklace that has a dark, smooth, almost marble-looking charm on it. A weathered black spring jacket pulls it all together, making Kise look stunning. All the signature clues that Kise has acquired new clothes after a weekend photoshoot are there.

His eyes narrow at the time on his laptop screen, it’s just after 1300. What? He had started studying just after dinner...did he…?

“Do you even know what day it is?” Kise asks seeing the confusion and horror on Midorima’s face.

Midorima shakes his head as a solemn, “No,” escapes his lips.

Kise sighs as he folds his arms across his chest. “It’s Monday. Afternoon.”

Midorima whirls in his seat to look at Kise. “You are not funny.” There is venom in his voice. He just pulled an all-nighter studying. There is _no way_ he studied for over 36 hours without realizing it. Midorima scratches his chin. His eyes widen mid-scratch in an internal scream when he feels stubble on it. He instinctively looks to the full-length mirror on Kise’s side of the bedroom. Midorima leans back in his seat so he can actually see himself. His jaw drops in shock.

Bloodshot eyes with large bags under them stare back at Midorima. Stubble is visible on his face, not just his chin. His vibrant green hair is sticking up at odd angles from running his hands through it so many times in frustration. There are several new stains on his shirt. Some are run-of-the-mill coffee stains and some are rather formidable sweat stains in his underarms and around the collar.

Kise sighs as he watches Midorima’s silent freak-out. “Check Oha Asa if you don’t believe me.” He gently sits on his bed, still facing Midorima, waiting to see his reaction.

Midorima says nothing. He’s too stunned to speak even if he wanted to. He deftly clicks on the bookmarked Oha Asa link in his web browser. His heartbeat hammers in his chest. The website loads quickly and Midorima baulks at the header.

“Monday, June 29.”

Midorima stares at the webpage in disbelief. It really is Monday. His fingers give a pained twitch as he scrolls down the page to find his horoscope. He quickly locates the one for Cancer to see what he needs to do to counteract any bad vibes that might have settled in already, considering it’s midday.

_Cancer: Cancers are considerably busy when The Moon is in Jupiter’s house this week. Be sure to take plenty of breaks in order to properly maintain healthy habits. An unwanted trip could prove to be adventurous. Don’t be afraid to do something different! Compatible: Scorpio. Incompatible: Gemini. Lucky Item: Square-shaped plush toy._

Kise clears his throat from his bed, “After you take a shower, we should go to lunch. I need to go see my agent downtown to finalize everything for the gig this past weekend.” Seeing Midorima’s less than thrilled expression about the idea of going into the heart of Tokyo, he adds, “My treat?”

“No.” Midorima says with finality to his voice as his head snaps back to his laptop.

“Why not? You haven’t left the campus in over two weeks and you’ve been cooped up in our room for days. It looks like you haven’t had a decent meal in a while. This is not healthy, Midorimacchi.” Kise straightens up from leaning against his bed.

“Strangely,” Midorima turns his head to look Kise in the eyes for the first time, “I think college is a time for studying and learning. Forgive me if I didn’t realize that I should be spending my college life running around Tokyo with an idiot.” Midorima’s irritation is radiating off of him. A sudden jolt of annoyance causes his blood to feel white hot. He spent way too long studying one subject and he needs to tackle at least four more course loads of work before he can consider himself ready for midterms. The thought of this made Midorima want to keep on studying, not run around Downtown Tokyo.

The harsh rejection sets Kise’s golden eyes ablaze with anger. Midorima feels his stomach drop to his toes at the sight. There is a storm coming and Midorima is just going to have to ride it out because he is unprepared.

Kise’s usual syrupy tone is gone when he speaks next. His tone is lower with a hint of a growl as he says slowly and clearly, “Midorimacchi, you are leaving this dorm even if I have to drag you. Takao told me he has been calling you for days and you never responded. He was so worried that he contacted _me_ while I was _working_ to find out if you were okay.”

A cold wave of guilt goes through Midorima and splashes hard in his stomach. That would explain why his phone rang several times. Midorima snatches his cellphone from its place on his desk, still connected to the charger. He quickly checks through the missing calls and sees just how many times Takao tried calling him over the past three days. A lot. Another wave of guilt crashes through Midorima.

He is usually very good about calling Takao back within an hour of him calling the first, maybe the second time. He never goes this long without returning a phone call. It’s no wonder Takao started to worry. The idea that Takao kept trying to get through and worked himself up so much that he even dared interrupt Kise on a weekend job...Midorima knows he fucked up.

He quickly opens a new text message to Takao and writes:

_Midorima: I’m fine. Sorry for not replying sooner. I was studying._

He hits send. The message is crap and he knows it. Takao will never be happy with a half-assed response like that after three days of silence. However, Midorima will sort that out properly later. Right now, he needs to get out of having lunch with Kise.

While Midorima had been looking at his phone, Kise strode across the room and stood as close as he dared to Midorima. Kise’s arms are crossed over his chest as he peers down at Midorima still sitting in his desk chair, forcing Midorima to look up at him.

 _Kise is intimidating from this angle._ Midorima thinks briefly.

“Midorimacchi. Do you have any idea how much I hate being interrupted when I’m modelling? I had to calm Takao down enough to reassure him that you weren’t dead. The photographers were not happy with me.”

Kise’s gaze shifts and reads the horoscope on the screen. He groans; his voice thick with irritation, “Please don’t tell me you’re just avoiding having lunch with me because Oha Asa says you’re incompatible with a Gemini today.” There is no joking in that tone. Midorima knows that tone very well. He’s heard it many times when they played basketball together as teammates in middle school and later when they were opponents in high school. It is a dangerous thing to cross Kise when he was using That Tone.

Midorima swallows. “Fine.” He gets up from his chair. “Fine. I will go with you to Downtown Tokyo.”

Kise smiles at this. Not a real smile but one that is downright wolfish because he knows that he has won. Midorima ignores it as he walks over to his bureau and pulls out clean clothes to wear. He mutters under his breath, “We’re going to need to go and find the lucky item for today, anyway.”

Kise hits Midorima upside the head with his own pillow.

* * *

Grey clouds fill the skies above Tokyo as a light drizzle falls onto the streets and sidewalks below. The people walking along the streets have their collars turned up or are under an umbrella in order to protect themselves from getting too wet.

Midorima and Kise are in the middle of a toy shop looking for a plushie that is square shaped. There is a never-ending pile of children’s toys that are soft, fluffy, and of varying vibrant colors but there wasn’t much to indicate where they hide the square-shaped ones.

“What about this?” Kise asks, holding up a Domo plushie.

“No, that’s too rectangular, Kise.” Midorima sounds exhausted when he says this. He managed to take a small nap on the train downtown but it was hardly long enough to counteract the realization that Midorima hasn’t slept in almost three days.

Kise puts the plush toy back. “How about this one?” he asks.

He holds up another plush toy that looks like a soft box, complete with brown color. “There’s even a chibi-like face on it.” It not only had a sewn-on cartoon face with big blue eyes, it had thin threadlike arms with little felted hands attached at the ends. “Tiny Box Tim,” Kise reads the tag for the toy in slow, heavily accented, English. “Never heard of it.”

As Midorima gets closer to inspect the plushie toy, Kise holds it up to Midorima’s coat pocket and says with a smile, “I think it’ll even fit in your pocket.”

“That’s really not a criteria for me,” Midorima says as he adjusts his glasses. He looks down at the plush toy and can’t help but find it...cute.

“Midorimacchi.” Kise pauses to sigh dramatically and look Midorima in the eyes, “It’s a criteria for _me_. I’d rather not be seen with you carrying around a plush toy in your arms. It’s embarrassing,” Kise says with a slight wrinkle of annoyance in his nose.

“It’ll do,” Midorima says with a furious blush starting on his neck as he snatches the plush from Kise’s hands.

“Careful! You’ll rip his arm off!” Kise shouts to Midorima’s back as he rushes towards the check-out.

* * *

The drizzle is doing nothing to help Midorima’s dismal mood after lunch. The pair of them were walking in strained silence under their own umbrellas back to the train station. Midorima can feel Kise’s gaze on him as they walk down the street. He knows Kise is trying to gauge how annoyed Midorima is now that he has been properly fed.

The answer is: Very.

His eyebrow twitches whenever he sees Kise is looking at him. The hand holding his umbrella wants to snap said umbrella shut and bean Kise upside the head with it. He opts for sharply saying, “You are staring, Kise. Stop it.”

“Why are you so upset? I’m just trying to get you out of the dorm and to eat something decent. Is that so mean of me?” Kise asks as he turns his head away from Midorima and stares straight ahead.

“You dragged me to your modelling agency in Downtown Tokyo during the height of Lunch Rush to finalize paperwork so you can get paid. During lunch, you talked about nothing else but your job this weekend and how you kept getting recognized while posing in a side-street.” Midorima zips up his coat the rest of the way as a small gust of wind cuts through his clothes giving him a chill despite it being June.

“We were bombarded by no less than three groups of fangirls in the restaurant who wanted your autograph. Out of those three groups, the most interesting thing they asked was if you were seeing anyone or what kind of hair products you used! And you’re wondering why I’m not happy to be out of our dorm?” Midorima fixes Kise a glare at this one. While maintaining eye contact, he reaches up and pushes up his glasses.

Kise sighs through his nose, “I needed to go to my agent’s office to talk about an upcoming job too. She prefers it if I stop by in person to know that I’m really interested in taking the new gig. It’s not my fault those girls recognized me. What was I supposed to do, turn them away? They waited until we finished eating. It’s only polite, Midorimacchi.”

“You are such an idiot,” Midorima says more to himself. “Why do you model if you don’t want attention?”

Kise glares at Midorima. “I was offered a job when we were in middle school, remember? I was the first out of our group of friends to be offered a job _and_ I was one of the very few that was able to work through high school. I took pride in the fact that someone thought _Kise Ryouta_ was handsome enough to model.” He spreads his arms wide as he sarcastically emphasizes his name.

Out of the corner of Midorima’s eye, he can see someone’s steps falter the moment Kise says his name out loud. Midorima looks to Kise’s face to see that he hasn’t noticed. _Great. More fangirls approaching._

Kise pauses before continuing, “At first it was something to do while I was in school to help my parents pay for all the trips we had as the GoM. I just turned out to be pretty good at it.” Kise’s voice drastically drops in volume before adding, “It’s just something to do until I need to get a real job.”

Midorima knew Kise well enough to hear the insecure, unsaid statement in his words. “As long as they think I’m pretty, I’m going to continue to be a model.”

“What would you do if you weren’t modeling though?” Midorima asks. Keeping the mysterious sneakers in his line of sight, he is able to see an umbrella shutting behind him. A young boy with blue hair is looking at the back of Kise’s umbrella with intense purpose in his eyes. Wait. A boy?

“I mean, my major is business management to help with the modelling but I’m not sure--” Kise starts to say before the blue-haired boy quickens his pace and steps in front of Kise.

“You really are Kise Ryouta!” the boys breaths in disbelief as he grabs the collar of Kise’s jacket and pulls him down for an open-mouthed kiss.

It’s like everything is happening in slow motion. Midorima can see Kise’s eyes go wide with shock, but then his eyes close as if he’s… enjoying the kiss from a total stranger. A total stranger that also happens to be a boy. A young man, technically, Midorima thinks after taking a second look at the boy’s physique. Lean muscles on his arms and legs. An athlete, maybe?

Midorima is suddenly very glad it is drizzling out. The umbrella Kise is holding is obscuring the kiss from onlookers as Midorima stands awkwardly _right there_ blocking the rest of the street’s view with his umbrella. His fingers give an involuntary twitch as an uncomfortable shiver runs down his spine. He can feel his cheeks and neck burn in embarrassment. What should he do? Should he say something?

He is about to open his mouth when Midorima notices the mysterious boy’s hand is inside Kise’s jacket.

 _This kid works lightening fast!_ Midorima thinks as his eyebrows nearly shot off his forehead in surprise.

If Midorima hadn’t been awkwardly observing this moment on the sidelines, he would have missed the boy pulling out Kise’s wallet from the inner jacket pocket. To keep Kise distracted the boy raises his free hand up to Kise’s face to keep him focused on kissing. The boy quickly shoves the wallet into his big vest pocket.

 _Slick._ Midorima smirks to himself. Oha Asa’s words pop into his head. _An unwanted trip could prove to be adventurous._

He knows he’s being an asshole not stopping the boy right now but honestly, this one is all on Kise for kissing a total stranger. Time for him to learn a lesson.

The boy and Kise (finally!) stop kissing. The boy pretends to be horrified and begins to backpedal with a small, “I’m sorry! I don’t know what came over me!” before completely turning on his heel and running off down the street.

Kise stands still with a look of genuine surprise on his face. His left hand is absently touching his bottom lip. The dreamy look on his face is comical. Midorima has a hard time controlling a chuckle in his throat at the sight. Kise notices Midorima struggling and it seems to bring him back to the present.

“See, Midorimacchi! Even guys like me!” Kise says far too proudly. In fact, he’s positively beaming.

Midorima can feel the twinkle in his eye when he says, “Kise. That guy just stole your wallet.”

“What?!” Kise pats where his wallet had been not too long ago in his inner jacket pocket and sure enough, it is long gone. “Why didn’t you say something sooner?” he shouts angrily as he starts to sprint down the street to try and catch the Intrepid Kisser & Wallet Stealer.

Midorima actually chuckles at this. He adjusts his glasses again before rubbing his tired face. He knows he should go after Kise to make sure that nothing bad happens to him while trying to retrieve the wallet. However, as he’s about to follow after Kise, he hears a train approaching and remembers his studying.

He goes to check the time on his phone when his fingers brush against the small square plush toy stuffed in the pocket. Midorima comes to his senses and thinks better of leaving Kise alone while tracking down a small-time criminal. Midorima groans, snaps his umbrella shut, and starts jogging down the street after Kise.

It takes a few tries and a couple of wrong turns but eventually he finds Kise.

Once again, Kise is in a daze, but this time, he’s triumphantly staring at the wallet in his hand.

“Oh good, you’re okay,” Midorima wheezes as he approaches. He hunches over with his hands on his knees so he can catch his breath.

Kise looks back to Midorima with a wide smile on his face. He wordlessly holds up a piece of scrap paper within an inch of Midorima’s nose.

In messy handwriting it read:

_I rather enjoyed our kiss Kise-kun. Please call me if you enjoyed it too._

_-Kuroko Tetsuya_

Underneath the name there was a phone number and two little ‘x’ kisses.

“What do you think, Midorimacchi?” Kise beams, clearly proud of himself.

“Nothing says ‘healthy relationship starter’ like stealing your s/o’s wallet upon first meeting.” Midorima says with a smirk.

“Rude!” Kise shouts.

**Author's Note:**

> I saw this prompt on Tumblr ages ago where it was, "Character A distracts Character B with a kiss in order to steal their wallet." I for the life of me have no idea where the prompt came from so I'm unable to properly give credit right now, but I will continue to search.
> 
> I thought the idea of Kuroko being able to distract with Kise with kisses was cute, so this was born. lol!
> 
> Thanks for reading!
> 
> Tumblr: thiefofalways88 (feel free to stop by and say hi!)


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